PEOPLE IN PERSPECTIVE

NZ Truth, Issue 877, 16 September 1922, Page 1

PEOPLE IN PERSPECTIVE

his for a long time, though R.S.A. work does not leave much time to spare nowadays, and for seven years or so he took a big hand m "Wellington management affairs, being largely responsible for the renewing of the Athletic Park agreement m 1912 and seeing that one or two rep. tours ran according to timetable. For three years, too, he sat with the New Zealand Rugby Management Committee and m between meetings and office work found time to look into locaJ body work. Eastbourne claimed him as a senior councillor and then he asked Wellington electors ' what tihey thought of him as a possible councillor. They thought not m the majority, but all the same he polled 7204 votes, something of a record for a man who did not quite get a seat, but that year, 1913, wttis a record for mixed enthusiasm among electors. He ia too busy to worry over local government seats just now, but his application may go In again some day — one never knows. That Foxton Reform r*ally was as much for the purTHE^LINKLATER pose of welcomTO FOLLOW ing and officially , , receiving the desired successor as to farewell the departing member for Manawatu. A case of exit Newman— enter Linklater. For Mr .Massey is an autocrat m the making, if not Ipso facto. He says: Here is our faithful Linklater— elect him m succession to Ed-' Newman. And the Linklater— nice fellow, at that— is quite willing *to take it on. Sturdy and solid, he will not turn down Cabinet rank because his health won't let him There is one thing more than another that backs up this prognostication—' he is from the West Coast of the South Island.. And of such are the men who never shirk office. There is quite a colony of southern West Coasters along the northern West Coast, and they are of the clans the most clannish, exceeding; even that of the Aucklande ffi'i M , r , Linkla ter has given, and is still giving, a tremendous amount of his time to public service, and to-day he practically. holds the championship for the number of offices m his holding—all freegratisandfornothing jobs. Popular withal, on the sunny side of life, full of vim and vigor, and always ready to look after the public interests m preference to his own concerns, yet finding time and inclination to farm i his land adequately as a producer, Mr Linklater is not at all unlikely io occupy the Manawatu seat after December next. A bit at a time we get an inkling into ?~ .YIL PH TH R ' E ~ ; plfblkfme^Take SCHOOLMASTER the case of the • „„ ■'■'•■ ■"•••.■■ Hon; D. H. Guthrle, M.P. for Oroua, Minister of Lands, Railways, and some other trifles. It been casually mentioned at intervals m his career that he was a school teacher before he became a farmer, before he settled into politics. Recently, after spending a couple oi days m Feilding; organising: his forces

for the coming campaign — by the way, his election secretary again is Mi Geary, who left the Wellington City Council staff to become Town Clerk of Feilding, and now is a land agent there — went on to Brunswick, a suburb of Wanganui, to unveil a war memorial at the school there- This expedition brings out the interesting fact that Mr Guthrie began his career as a school teacher m the Brunswick School — 46 years ago. It isn't difficult to calculate from that fact that the Minister Who Sticks to His Desk is not far from the allotted span of life, is ,it? -With sons and grandsons settled on the lands at the back of beyond up there m the far country of his electorate, it is therefore, to record also- that Mr Guthrie s has a 12 -year- old son attending Scot's College, Wellington. No one who handles a mail bag or taps a THE P. AND T. graph key or ASSOCIATION MAN works anywhere^ m any post office needs an introduction to Harry E. Combs, Secretary of the P. and TV Officers' Association, and most footballers know him pretty well, too, but there are quite a few who have yet to meet him, and probably will shortly, for the political bug has bitten him. Napier claimed him, but later he was moved away to Gisborne, where he grew to be old enough to take on his first job, running Poverty Bay "Heralds-" With that behind him as practice he took up the speedier work of running telegrams, and since then, twenty years ago, he has been closely connected with P. and T." affairs, either as a postal or an association official. His association work goes back to 1905, and since 1906 he has attended every annual conference of P. and T. officers with the exception of one, and so should have a general idea of what's what. He has a few interests on the side, such as the editing of th<; "Katipo" and management matters of Rugby football, but now, of course, his big side interest is the Wellington North electorate. He is the official' Labor candidate, but all the same he has a lot of hard horse sense. He i 3 a good fellow to know; ask any P. and T. man. Tom Forsyth has just left T.R.O House, after 24 year's FORSYTHIAN of very faithful serFELLOWSHIP vice to that big- es--1 tablishrnent, first as its accountant, - and during the • last eight years as its complete controller. Well into the prime of life, the genial Tom has at long last carried out the Great Idea of his life— he has struck out on his own. We wonder, how many Wellingtonians remember the bygone days when Tom Forsyth was one of their city's strongest forwards, m club and rep. games. He was some forward m those days of such giants as ISllieon and King and other big fellows who took as much stopping as .m elephant when on the move- Tom F. came to us from our Edinburgh of the South, and old Otagan players :\stiil

speak of the Forsythian push. But Tom Forsyth is many sided, and all sides of him have been shown to advantage during his 30 years and more stay ■m Wellington. He began life as a softgoodsman, and has had quite an experience as a warehouseman. He has been a wonderfully faithful organist (with Jim Thawley) at the Courtenay Place Congregational Church, to which he has been a tower of strength (with his friend Alf Lewis)) m other departments of its work also. He sings a good song, too. As an educationist, he is Wellington's strong- man of the day, his sturdy clashes with Minister Parr being still fresh m the public mind. He graduated from the Committee of the Clyde Quay. School, and to-day is not only Chairman of the Education Board, but is a very live member of the City Council- Indeed, so great are the Forsythian ramifications that folks are "asking whether the next step will be towards our legislative halls. You can't keep an ambitious Scot down once he starts a-climbing. It is a pity that he is throwing m his lot. with Reform as a candidate for Wellington East. :: :: :: The London correspondents tell us that Harold BeauA BRILLIANT champ, whose name is BEAUCHAMP inseparably connected with the Bank of New Zealand, has been staying at New Forest with his' two daughters, and then the group went over to Paris to meet the brilliant Beauchamp who has won fame for the family as Katherino Mansfield (her two given names), a story writer with an international reputation. In private life she is Mrs Middleton Murry, wife of one of London's youngest and foremost literary critics, essayists and magazine editors of the serious class. Mrs Murry, who "enjoys poor health," spends most of her time these days m salubrious Italy. It is as a writer of short stories dealing with life and character ia the smart set and m the pensions (or lodging houses) of health resorts on the Continent that Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry shines, and two collections of those stories have already gone on to the bookshelves m permanent form. Garvin's "Sunday Observer" said of her latest book, "The Garden Party," that it showed "wonderful and sensitive vitality," and noted the sureness of her imaginative handling not only of place and circumstances, but of character." The "Outlook" calls, her "a very great short story writer." This is proved by the fact that last year she was the run-ner-up for a big literary laurel bestowed by a French group of critics. Kath. Beauchamp began her writing m Wellington when a girl of 16 or 17 years of age, but hid her light for years. It was a family secret- In those days she wrote delightful poetry, and she,, has the rare distinction of having placed the whole .of her first batch of stories and verse accepted by the magazines m London, New York and Melbourne to which they were sent. Then she took her talents to London, whilst still m her teens— she has riot looked back since— and she is still a young woman. There is another brilliant Beauchamp, a Melbourne cousin, who . first won fame with her book, "Elizabeth arid Her Garden." .